On the Edge
by whoa dream big
Summary: She holds the Mercer name, but she's never truly fit in. [Different take on 'Sister Mercer' fics]


**Title: **_On the Edge_

**Summary:** She holds the Mercer name, but she's never truly fit in. Different approach on the "Sister Mercer" plot.

**Disclaimer: **You know the drill, I own nothing. _Four Brothers_ is owned by John Singleton and that group. Also, I'm not the first one to come up with an outcast sister plot. I looked for the one fic that inspired this, but couldn't find it just yet. It's ridiculously good and such an excellent plot idea. (And I have no idea how I forgot the name and author!)

**Author's Note: **While I love and appreciate the "Sister Mercer" fics out there, this is simply a different approach on it. Things might go differently than they do in the movie, so please just remember this is fan fiction and I don't have to stick with the movie canon.

I won't deal with flames, but constructive criticism is always welcome.

Enjoy!

****

**On the Edge**

**Part One**

I know a little something about the Mercer brothers. A little bit more than the average person living in Detroit, but probably not much more than someone who knows one of them personally; an old friend from the hockey team, an old classmate, a next door neighbor . . .

I know that Robert "Bobby" Mercer wears boxers. Jeremiah "Jerry" Mercer tends toward briefs. Angel Mercer wears both. And though Jack Mercer claims boxers are where it's at, he has briefs hidden under his socks.

I know, because I was often doing their laundry. And I feel so sorry for whoever's doing it now - especially Camille, Jerry's wife. Although, that's not so bad . . . I had all _four_ of them at once.

I lived with them under the care of Evelyn Mercer for years. On the outside, we were the five Mercer kids. A unit. A _family_. But I was never truly one of them. I wasn't tough like they were. Don't get me wrong; you have to be tough to be a foster child, especially one in Detroit. But they were _solid _tough. They had walls around them you couldn't break down with sledgehammers. I didn't.

Essentially, I was the weak link.

I was the only girl. I wasn't strong physically. I wasn't very good with words. I was awful at fighting. I had braces. And I was . . . chubby, it's the friendliest word I can think up right now. In their eyes, I was a disgrace to the Mercer name, I'm sure. But, my worst crime? I was Evelyn Mercer's little girl.

Evelyn had never adopted a girl before. She'd hosted them for months at a time, of course, but there had never been a case like mine. She'd never had a girl to call her own. She loved spending time with me, braiding my hair, telling me stories about her childhood, taking me shopping . . . She spent a lot of time with me, which the four boys saw as a threat.

For a long time, I blamed myself for them not liking me. I convinced myself it was the frizzy brown hair, always all over the place. Or the braces. Or my weight. Or even how shy I was. I stuck with the 'shy' excuse for a really long time; it was the least depressing. I told myself that I was too shy when I'd first come to the Mercer house. The first few nights I was there, they were friendly to me. Overly friendly . . . Evelyn's handy work, no doubt. They set me up in my room, tried to get me to play Monopoly, or go watch them play hockey. Even at dinner, they'd say grace and whenever Angel would go for my hand, I'd flinch and pull it back.

I did that a lot; pulled back and away from them. But that was only for the first two weeks, when I was scared of everyone around me. Evelyn really tried to get me to be more outgoing, at least with my 'brothers'. _She wanted us all to get along_, she kept telling me. _And they were such good boys_.

For her sake, I did try. I spent nearly a week building up the confidence to approach them. By the time I was ready (maybe for watching a hockey game, or a show on the television) they'd started thinking I was stealing Evelyn from them. By that point, she was almost babying me, which I'd appreciated more than I ever told her. At that point, I didn't understand why they didn't want to spend time with me. They were polite when Evelyn or someone else was around. But I wasn't one of them. I hadn't earned the Mercer name, in their eyes.

By the time I turned fourteen, I'd been living with the Mercers for nearly a year. And things were . . . bad, would be the wrong word. Like I said, the four were polite and nice to me. At school, no one messed with me, because they were afraid of what the four Mercer brothers would do if someone messed with their little sister. But the five of us knew that I wasn't their little sister. They didn't consider me to be. I wanted it . . . oh, I wanted their acceptance so badly, but I knew they wouldn't give it. Not while Evelyn continued to take me out by myself on Wednesday nights, each week a new restaurant to try, and sometimes a movie afterwards. Not while she'd constantly make the four change the channel whenever my favorite show was on; despite my protests.

I resented her for it, for a short period of time. I thought she was keeping me from having brothers. I even skipped out on a Wednesday night dinner, once. That threw Evelyn, and hurt her too. I felt so awful for ditching her and causing her pain that I never missed it again. I even took her out to a surprise lunch, to make up for it. This won me no brownie points with my brothers.

They didn't consider me one of them. Because of them, I never felt worthy of the Mercer name.

When I was fourteen, the others were practically grown up. Bobby was twenty-one, living at home only to make sure his little brothers were okay and because he was a little fearful of leaving the first real home he'd ever had, though he never told me that. Jerry was two years younger and just barely starting community college. He had big plans for himself and wanted a business of his own to run. He was the first to move out, but I'll get to that later. Angel was eighteen, and going through an "I'm the _MAN_." phase. He was on the football and basketball team, star player on both. He walked through the halls of his high school like he was a god; which he was, especially as a Senior. And then there was Jack, only sixteen and two years older than me. You'd think we would have gotten close at some point. We never did.

So, when I was a Freshman in high school, the four Mercer brothers still lived at home. They ate together, laughed together, joked around together, played together and shared with each other. But never with me. I was the outcast they made sure the world thought truly belonged - they even fooled Evelyn until they all left.

Which brings me back to Jerry. He was nineteen when I was fourteen and had been working for a year since he'd graduated high school in order to save enough money to go to community college. By summertime, he'd arranged to live in a small apartment building close to campus. Bobby, Angel and Jack helped move him in. Evelyn and I bought curtains and pillows and appliances Jerry never would have thought to buy for himself. Jerry never would've accepted them if they were just from me. But he hugged Evelyn when we brought them, and merely hugged me as an afterthought, when Evelyn pushed me forward. She thought I was being shy again. I wasn't.

Once Jerry left, the house seemed so much smaller. His jokes and wide smiles turned the house bleak, and it was like everything went downhill from there. The others began to treat me differently, for the first time, shutting me out of their group in front of Evelyn. She told me it was only natural for them to push me away when Jerry left . . . they just missed him. She was able to explain their constant absences easier with Jerry being gone as well. They were simply visiting him, trying to ease themselves out of finally growing up and apart. She never questioned why I wasn't invited to Jerry's apartment after he first moved in.

That same summer, Angel surprised everyone when he announced he'd signed up for the Marines and would be shipping out come fall. Evelyn, though terrified of Angel actually fighting in a foreign country, was proud of him and had a huge dinner to celebrate it. Though everyone else acted happy, it was obvious only Jerry and Evelyn were truly glad Angel was moving out and becoming someone. Jack seemed to fall into a semi-depression and Bobby was constantly Jack, as if he were afraid Jack would disappear next.

He didn't seem to want to wait for another one of his brothers to leave, though. Instead, he announced he'd be heading off for a community college up north, where he could play serious hockey. He'd leave around the same time as Angel.

A week after that announcement, Jack signed up for summer school classes. I figured it was because he wanted out of the house, away from his brothers and away from me. It wasn't until fall arrived, and the new year was starting that I figured it out. He told everyone he was graduating a semester early. I'll never forget how proud they all were; even Bobby. We went out to a fancy restaurant and Angel and Jerry constantly bragged about their "whiz kid" younger brother and Bobby would wrap an arm around Jack's shoulders, grinning and teasing him. Evelyn would smile through it all. You could see how much she loved each of them just by watching her interact with them.

I was proud too, in my own outcast way. I was a school girl, through and through and I appreciated it when anyone else worked hard to get by. I figured it out later that night, towards dessert, that Jack was merely working hard to get away from me. I didn't think about it, not like he obviously had. With all of his brothers gone from the house (though Jerry was still close to home) he'd be stuck with me. For an entire year, he'd be trapped with the youngest Mercer. The girl none of them could accept. The one Mercer who hadn't earned the name.

I almost threw up everything I'd eaten right there, in front of all of them. I watched them laugh and smile and joke with each other, and for the first time, I felt truly _unwanted_. And as I watched Evelyn look at each of them, unconditional love in her eyes, I felt almost invisible.

She loved me. I know that. And I knew it then. But at that moment I just felt . . . sick.

I'd torn the Mercers apart.

It would've been crazy if I'd said it aloud. Especially if I said it where anyone could hear me. Because, remember that to the rest of the world, the Mercer brothers loved and cared for me.

I was the Mercer sweetheart. The _good_ Mercer. The only Mercer girl. Adored by all in the Mercer family.

Mercer, Mercer, Mercer. To the rest of the world, it's who I was.

But to the four Mercer brothers, I was just Madison.


End file.
